Arsene Wenger confirms Arsenal's Mathieu Debuchy is out for three months following ankle surgery

Arsene Wenger today confirmed Mathieu Debuchy will be out for three months after undergoing ankle surgery.

As Standard Sport reported last week, the French defender suffered ankle ligament damage in Arsenal’s 2-2 draw with Manchester City earlier this month and saw a specialist who confirmed an operation was required.

Wenger confirmed the injury today and claimed the £16million summer acquisition of Calum Chambers will help offset Debuchy’s absence.

“He had surgery on Friday and will be out for three months,” said the Gunners manager. “A reasonable delay is three months. All went well, but it can be a week or two earlier or a week or two later, but it will be around three months. It is a blow of course, how big it will be we will only know afterwards because it will be down to how well we replace him. We bought Chambers for that.”

Wenger also confirmed Nacho Monreal is set to miss Arsenal’s next four games, starting with tomorrow night’s Capital One Cup clash against Southampton, with a back problem, leaving the Gunners with precious little defensive cover.

Monreal, Yaya Sanogo, Theo Walcott and Serge Gnabry are all expected to return to full training after next month’s international break, meaning the first game they could be available for is Arsenal’s Premier League home game against Hull on October 18.

Five things Tottenham must do to avoid embarrassment at Arsenal

Five things Tottenham must do to avoid embarrassment at Arsenal

1/5
Drop Vlad Chiriches

The Romania captain was a surprise selection ahead of Jan Vertonghen on Sunday and looked vulnerable against West Brom. He gave the ball away a number of times and always looked like he had a mistake in him. Really struggled against Saido Berahino.

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2/5
Play with more width

Spurs made it easy for West Brom by playing everything through the middle. They need to get the ball wide much quicker next weekend and play with more intensity, because it was all-too predictable yesterday. Aaron Lennon came off the bench and could be an option for Mauricio Pochettino.

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3/5
Improve set piece defending

Against an Arsenal side who put three past Aston Villa at the weekend, Spurs will need to improve defensively if they are to get anything at Emirates Stadium. Jan Vertonghen, on the bench on Sunday, will surely partner Younes Kaboul at centre-half. Defending from set-pieces will need to be much better.

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4/5
Get creative

For all their possession against West Brom, Spurs managed just one shot on target - and that came after 70 minutes. They are lacking a cutting edge up front but will need to give Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny a busy afternoon. The likes of Erik Lamela and Christen Eriksen need to create more for Emmanuel Adebayor.

5/5
Find a way of keeping Danny Welbeck and Mesut Ozil quiet.

The Arsenal pair were instrumental in Saturday’s 3-0 win against Aston Villa and Spurs will need to plug the supply to Welbeck, the £16million signing from Manchester United.

Wenger habitually fields his youngsters in the Capital One Cup and he hinted at several names who might feature at Emirates Stadium tomorrow against a Saints side the Frenchman is full of praise for having started the season in fine style despite selling a series of high-profile players in the summer.

“You might see Hector Bellerin, Francis Coquelin and Isaac Hayden,” he said. “In the squad, we also have Chuba Akpom and Semi Ajayi as well. These are the players that are the closest.

“They are miracle workers at Southampton and you must say everybody expected them to collapse, they lost the spine of their team, they lost their manager and they bounced back in a such a way. I must say when I saw them against Liverpool where they lost the game, I thought straight away that this team is very strong and very good.”